The Great Depression Fire Part 1. - Episode 65

In this episode, Kara is taking us way back to her favorite time period... when everything went to crap or in other words the Great Depression. She starts off with one of the most tremendous dumpster fires of the 20th century which was the stock market crash of 1929. While it was not the sole cause of the Great Depression, it was a foreboding sign of the things to come. Afterwards, Kara describes how the American work force went from one of the most prosperous in the world to mass unemployment and despair. 

Side note, while things were bad in America, the rest of the world (especially Europe) was in WAY worse shape all things considered!

In this episode Kara will explain:

• The background of the Crash of 29
• The social implications of hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their homes
• How the beginnings of the Great Depression affected not only white men, but women and African Americans
• The life of the "hobo" and the misconceptions about what they were about
• And even a hint as to what America tried to do to put the dumpster fire out. 

The events that surround the Great Depression stem from the Dust Bowl of the mid-west which you can listen to in Episode 48. 

If you're fascinated with this dumpster fire as well as many more, check out the complete library at www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com

Lastly, if you're interested in this time period, you will probably find these episodes of The Day's Dumpster Fire interesting:

Episode 13. The Hindenburg Fire (Not the Blimp, but the Other One)

Episode 14. The Boston Molasses Flood Fire

Episodes 23 & 24. I Love the Smell of Lead Fire

Episodes 59-62. Prohibition Fire

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at thedaysdumpsterfire@gmail.com. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

Check us out on the ol Instagrams!
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Transcript

0:00

I'm gonna start the recording now. That ain't it, let's try this.

Kara: 0:19

Oh. Oh shoot, let's try it again. There we go. It took us a few tries, but we finally got it. We did it. Hello everybody and welcome to the day, Stumpster Fire. Where we celebrate lots of failures and some successes. How are you doing? This is Kara as ever and I'm here with it. How you doing? I think mostly it's failures. I think it's failures and how to get out of failures.(laughing) Yeah, I feel like half the time we are trying to like, oh crap, what is going on? How do we start this show and then like every day it's just a hot mess. That's okay, makes life exciting. Well, I would say makes life more exciting, but less depressing. How do you like that for a transition to? Pretty good. Good, I'm trying to think of some? I'm just gonna spy. But I'm a writing person so I like. have to(laughing) Awful, all right. So today we're talking about the Great Depression. Today and maybe the next one and possibly the next one. We'll see how far. Oh gosh. I'm very thorough. Yes, yes. Yeah, like we're diving into the Great Depression today and then hopefully I'm gonna have something a little bit more uplifting. Yes. I like exploding gas wells and what not. Who doesn't So... love exploding gas anything? We just listened to the wrong intro of the exploding whale, which was technical exploding(laughing) gases. So why not? Let's do it. Hey, if you're just joining us, like the last two episodes had to do with explosive mud. And yeah, if you've ever had any experience with explosive mud, yeah. Yep. It's a good time. Especially like 3 a. m. After a crab boil for dinner.(laughing) We're just rocking back and forth, just-- Awful. I don't know, toilet. It's like roll up your sleeves.(laughing) A double bucket of fair. Anyway!(laughing) Yes. We're off the rails. Well, we're talking about the Great Depression. Now, keep in mind Cara, I grew up with people that grew up in the Great Depression. I know. So, I hope the goodness you have your facts straight, because a lot of the old parts granted their dead by now, but a lot of these old folks, they're like,"Oh, I remember the Great Depression." Yeah, also talking to somebody who obsesses over making sure that my facts are straight. Fair enough, fair enough. I really meet it when I say I'm very thorough.(laughing)'Cause somebody has to go for their master's degree in history. Ooh, go me. Yeah, so like Cara is gonna be an expert. My wife is gonna be an expert. My children are gonna be an expert. Meanwhile, I'm some hillbilly left in the dust. You're doing great. I'm doing great. We should really get this episode Well, started. hey,(laughing) look, I'm trying to just talk about my depression. No, well you Wrong go on. type of depression. Well, you go on about your depression. Well, maybe if we Well. think about these people who went through something like this and maybe you should start thinking about, maybe it's not so bad. And yes, yeah, no, no, you bring a good point because it's just like, I've always lived amongst people where I tried to complain about my problems. And then one guy is like, oh, I'm sorry, I survived the Holocaust. Oh, I'm sorry, I survived World War II or I'm sorry, I survived the great depression. And then I'm like, okay, let me put my complaining where it's back in my bag. Lock that up and walk out of the way. So are you never hearing me complain? Well, I do, you just complain. Whoa, yeah, that's fine. Okay, I'm not gonna argue. All right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, let's, let's dive into the Great Depression because there's not a lot of dumpster fighters out there that were as a hot as messes this. Yeah, I'm just, I'm really going for all the hot messes and I'm enjoying every second of it. So let's do part one, brother, can you spare a dime? And we're gonna talk about the years 1929 to 1932. And I'm going to start us off with a quote that I just found ironic. Quote, stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. Economist Irving Fisher October 16th, 1929 from the New York Times. Really? This was that that that that's what it is. It's just like, oh, stocks are all time high. Yeah, two weeks before the crash happens. He's saying, Stalkshurtle all time high. We're doing great. It's just Red Run same time that the, uh, stock market, like, kind of want to shut down. Uh, because well, no, well, we're going to talk about all of that because it's complicated, but I want to lay it all out, so it's clear. Okay, end of all, yeah. Because I remember back in the day, um, that the stock market wanted to shut down because like everything that could be invented wasn't invented. And there were like, yeah, let's just shut it all down because there's nothing more that could be invented. Really? Yeah. Okay. So hopefully I have my facts wrong on that regard because I'm like really humanity literally said that like nothing more could be invented ever again. No, I don't think people said that. Okay, I think some people could have said that, but I don't think everybody said that. Okay, so four people. I said like four out of five million. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so it really wasn't a thing where they wanted to shut down. No, the entire, like, warehouse type of thing. No, that wasn't the opposite. Oh, really? At least during this time. Anyways, we'll get into it. Let's, let's start. Let's start. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's dive it. into Let's lay it up. So the 1920s are often seen as a period of immense prosperity in the United States. The population had been booming all throughout the 1920s and in 1919, for example, there were about 104.5 million people in the country. And then in 1929. 10 years later, the population was 121.77 million people. So we boosted our number like it's all at 16 million or something like that. Factories and big cities were churning out industrial innovations, such as automobiles, kitchen appliances and telephones in rural People were moving west to try their hand at farming, which have been proving prosperous at the time. A mid prohibition and organized crime. The public was doing well for the most part by 1928, the average individual income was $6, 000, $6, 000, $78. 93 per year. So in today's money, the average person individually was earning$113, 839 per year. So making over $100, 000 on average. In 1929, the most popular car in America was the Ford Model A, which sold 1.9 million in that one year alone. There were 23 million cars on the road, almost four times the amount in 1919, 40% of American homes had a radio, singing in the rain and making woppy could be heard on radios and cities across the nation and movie theaters played. The Hollywood review in which singing to the rain had debuted. Pickball could be making woppy. Yes, it was a top hit in it in 1929. And it may be chuckle so I had to put it in there. Okay, so what, wait, what does making woppy? On the radio and tail. What do you think that means? I don't know. I suggest everyone pause. Go either listen to the song, making woppy in 1929 or read the lyrics and then come back. Let me know. People could be seen sitting on polls as a test to their endurance. Notably, Shipwreck Kelly had held held the record for sitting on a flagpole in Atlantic City, New Jersey for 49 days. His record would be broken the next year. The Philadelphia athletics won the World Series against the Chicago Cubs on October 14th, 1929, with a four to one series victory two weeks after the World Series ended, the stock market in Wall Street would crash, sending the United States and the rest of the world into an economic depression that would have radical consequences beyond what anybody could have imagined in the fall of 1929. So I know a guy, I know this sounds weird, um, I know a guy, growing up in the retirement community that I was in, and he walked into Washington, DC with about $500. That was what 1928, 29, and he was worth $17 million. And then on that October 29th, he was worth nothing. So homeboy lost like $19 million in a Along day. with a lot of other people. Yeah. And it wasn't like he was screwing people over or whatever, it was just a simple matter of like, hey, I was investing in the 20s and then, yep, October 29th, I lost everything. Yep, with him. So what, what in the world happened? We're going to lay it all out. It'll lay Please it all out there. do lay it all out so that I know when to not invest in the stock market. Okay, all right, here we go. Chapter one, I call in chapter one, boom. And our starting quote here is from Herbert Hoover, from his inaugural address from March, 1929, back when the inaugurations were in March. Hours is a land rich in resources, stimulating in its glorious beauty filled with millions of happy homes, blessed with comfort and opportunity. And no nation are the institutions of more advanced and no nation are the fruits of the, fruits of accomplishment more secure. And no nation is the government more worthy of respect. No country is more loved by its people. I have an abiding face and their capacity, integrity and high purpose. I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope. Now, we don't know for sure what tomorrow will bring but we can speculate. People have been doing so for a very, very long time. Any historical event that talk about could never have been predicted by the people who lived through them, but some could speculate and some were right and some speculate and somewhere wrong. That's just how it is now, now it was then. The people who are now a part of what we called the greatest generation are no different. They just did the best with the events that had occurred during their lifetime, just like we did today, just like Herbert Hoover had done when he had his inaugural address in 1929. Well, some saw a coming, most people had no idea that an economic depression was right around the corner. So how did it happen and why? Many in the United States feel the depression as an American phenomenon and it's easy to forget that it was an event, the event was global. The economic depression hit different countries around the world and varying degrees like an illness slowly spreading throughout the global economy, but the United States could be considered ground zero for that economic epidemic. The causes of the great are varied and often debated amongst historians in terms of the biggest or the most influential there blah blah blah. Despite the difference in opinion, there are numerous variables that are considered factors and why the depression happened, but to truly understand the variables that are in place, we should probably take a peek into what the global economy looked like before 1929. Very briefly, Crash Course style. Let's get into it. First, let's look at World War and the Treaty of Versailles. I'm not talking right, I'll look at the entire floor, just the end. The First World War left Europe in Tatters. Miles of trenches slithered along the Western European landscape filled with blood and bodies while the skeletons of cities stood bare. It's going to take an immense amount of manpower and money to rebuild the great rebuild after the Great War. of the European powers linked heavily on the global economic system that had been built during the previous colonial era and the industrial revolution that had shaped the world before the war. Because their infrastructure was untouched by violence, many largely relied on the United States to hold them up while they rebuilt their cities into streets and economies. France, Britain and Germany were the largest foreign powers taking loans from the United States right after World War One with the promise that they would take the fund now and pay later once they were back on their feet. Germany in particular was very reliant on U. S. loans after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. Why? The Treaty of Versailles got sucked for them. So, wait. So the Treaty of Versailles was that like solely dependent on America? No. The Treaty of Versailles was signed by America, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, and the other great powers. It was a compromise. Okay, so it's not like, hey, when the American economy took a dump, it really didn't fully translate into Germany? Or did it? It did because Germany was taking loans from American banks. Got it. Yep, I think. So Germany was borrowing money from US banks to pay off their award debts and rebuild their stuff. Okay, so I'm going to stop there because there's a lot more we're going to get into. So the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, ending the first World War. The terms for Germany were exceptionally harsh as they were considered responsible for the war. Germany had to take full blame. They were excluded from the League of Nations and later in 1926 the Bimar Republic and Germany would be accepted into the League of Nations, but in 1919, it wasn't a thing. They Yeah. had to rebuild the government first. All German fortifications in the Rhineland and East of the river would have been demolished without opportunity to be rebuilt. These areas would be occupied by allied forces for five to fifteen years to ensure this was followed. Germany's territories were reduced to 13% of what it was before the war had started pro, they were prohibited to ally themselves with Austria. And they had to cut their army to 100,000 men and army size could not exceed that number. They were no longer allowed and Air Force or submarines with the limitation of six battleships. And finally, the big one, Germany had to pay 31.4 billion dollars in war reparations. That's a 1920's money. That's a lot of money. That's a crap ton of money. That's an insurmountable amount of money. And in the 1920's it sent Germany into financial ruin from hyperinflation throughout the 1920's. It was just bad. But didn't Germany pay that off? And like two thousand twenty? Yeah, because didn't Uncle Merkel Angela like pay Merkel. that off. Yeah, she paid it off like in the 2020 it took him on it took him a hundred years paid off. And yet they still did. Yep. Okay. Yeah. I guess I needed to sit down and calculate my student loans. They figured it This out. is crap out. It took a long time, but they did it. If a country can figure out billions of dollars, I think I need to figure out my hundreds of thousands of dollars. So my point in terms of Germany and the Treaty of Versailles is they're taking lots of money from the U. S. financial system to keep them afloat essentially. They're going through a lot. At this period in history as well, the global economy was functioning on the gold standard system. An economic system that basis its currency values on the amount of gold to country possesses. And like everything in this world, the gold standard has its pros and its cons. So the pros of the gold standard you could say are exchanging currency between countries is very, very easy. You could go in there and be like, I have this much, American money, and it's really, really close if not the same to this amount of British money. pretty easy under the gold standard in that regard. It holds limitations in place for inflation or overspending. So if you can't go above the amount of gold you have, so it's automatically going to control how much you're spending as a country. And then countries that adhere to the gold standard were seen as economically stable and prosperous on the world stage, so it was good for their reputation. The cons, the bad things about the gold standard, and I would like you to pay attention to this a little bit. Under the gold standard, banks did not have the capability to expand money or credit to boost economic downturns when they did happen and they did happen a lot. In order to maintain the gold standard and a fluid economy, governments had to increase interest rates or cut spending. So in order to follow the gold standard and keep up with its governments also and often had to increase interest rates, meaning if you wanted to take out a loan to buy a or a car or whatever, they're going to jack up the interest rate just so they can keep up with the gold standard. If there was a gold deficiency in one country, other countries would have to make up for that deficiency to make sure the economy stays afloat. So if one country is low on gold, they're going to have to rely on everybody else to stay afloat. Politically, gold commitments often took precedence over social welfare, welfare, employment, and domestic policies for many governments who used the system. So keeping up with the gold standard was more important than, you know, all of the things that government should be doing for the people living in that country. So those are the bad things about the gold standards. But in the 1920s, we're following the gold standard because it works for now. And by the 20s, most of the world's gold was concentrated in the United States and France, creating an economic imbalance with more countries that had gold deficiencies in countries that had enough gold to keep up with the gold standards. So that's an issue. Because remember, the countries that had the gold had to make up the countries that didn't have the gold. And it does come back to Python. So when everything does crash, one of the concepts of gold standard is that you can't take out credit to boost your economy. So you just have to jack up interest. And then you just screw in everybody over who's already screwed over and it compounds the issue. So there's the gold standard. And the entire world is the gold standard until the crash of 2009 when they started abandoning that. All right, because the United States was geographically further away from the battlefields, it had little to no rebuilding period when compared to Europe, that compounded with the fact that it had more gold than its European counterparts. 1920s America was a very different picture than we had just painted in Europe. The two economic phenomena that first occurred on the United States in this period is what we're these are these are what this is what we're going to focus on average Americans making very large purchases on credit and average Americans playing stock market. Those are the two things we're going to focus on today. It sounds really boring. I promise I'm not going to dig us a big whole of talking about credit scores and how credit is bad. We're not doing that. I can't do that. But instead, but so like was the whole great depression thing like tied to people pulling too much up from credit. We're going to talk about it right now. it. Got In 1924, one Ford advertisement asked big bold black letters and you can find this ad it's still up on the internet somewhere. I found it. It was interesting. It says, how did he ever get the money to buy a car? And then following in bold red letters. Ford weekly purchase plan. This is one of the earliest forms of the credit system for Americans to purchase items on a payment plan that would eventually take the nation by storm throughout the 1920s. The credit system for the American population had been available since the 1800s. But the system exploded in popularity in the late 1920s as people using major retailers who offered to sell items on credit. So like the famous seers catalogs that you see in documentaries or whatever, they were selling things on credit for the first time to people you could go in the catalog and be like, oh, I like that house. I only have to pay this amount of money per month. I'm going to buy this house and finance it. And then we're going to do it that way. Yep. You could buy a house out of a magazine at this time. It's really fascinating. Well, and I've seen some articles back then where you can buy like a shotgun yep, for you could a probably like super buy it. You could buy it super cheap or you could probably buy it on credit. Okay, Great. so are we seeing or are we starting to see like the credit thing credit pile up here. It's exploding right now. So the 1920s, a lot of these major purchases, including cars, radio appliances, telephones, all of these major purchases and items that were once too expensive for many people to afford if they were to buy it on on their own, they could now buy it. However, thanks to credit purchases, more Americans were able to enjoy a lot of luxuries that they never had available to them before. That's where we have so much. It's so much. The booing 20s, the roaring 20s. Partially, you can take the credit system for that. By 1929, companies had made an abundance of products in hopes of keeping up with the future demand. This created a surplus of goods ready for the taking based on the demands that they were seeing throughout the mid 20s, but there was a problem with their projection strategy. Would you like to try to point out the problem? Too many people were borrowing credit. No, not really. The problem was that people they only need one kitchen appliance. They don't need to buy 3 or 4 of them all at the same time. these items, a lot of families, they only needed one, so demands started to drop. Not as many All people were buying the products. Okay, okay. Yeah, so these are all these great things we're all buying, they're not credit, "Woo, big boo, where are everybody boo?" And then we only needed one, so we're not going to have to buy more, right? Really was that enough to cause? No, no, no, no. All of this stuff is one thing after another. These are like little bits of rocks and bubbles that we're throwing into a plastic bag. Okay. There is not one sole reason. Just like, this isn't a traditional dumpster fire. This is everybody throwing bits and pieces of flambable crap. Correct. To the dumpster that would then ignore. Correct. There is So that no... you can't blame. One person No. or a group... It's impossible. Or whatever. Yeah, no, it's impossible to do that. There is not one sole reason that the depression happened. It's a multitude of different things. Got it. Okay, yeah. okay. So Yeah, all of these yeah, things that we're talking about, the treaty of Versailles and foreign countries taking out loans. And then we have the gold standard that we have to adhere to. We have this credit system that is happening. That's blowing up. All of these things are little flambable of paper that we're in. throwing But I thought the gold standard issue was more like in the 1890s. The world is following the gold standard by the 1920s. Okay. Oh, okay. So the rest of the world is like, hey, our dollar is based on ex amount of gold. Yeah. Everybody's dollar is based on ex amount of gold, including the United States. But I thought they ditched that in the like 1890s. No. No, they were on the gold standard in the 20s. Okay. Because that's where like the... So I remember studying like, oh gosh, what was it? It was a snow white. It was, you know, the one with Dorothy. Wizard of Oz. Wizard of Oz, yes. And that was closely like, if you read the book, that was closely tied to the free silver movement in all that nonsense. But that was in the 1870s, 1880s. That was in 1899. Yeah. But the US didn't drop the gold standard until 1933. But they adopted the silver standard. But they were on the gold standard. On top of the silver standard. That like, that's where the whole Wizard of Oz thing came was that like, hey, it's the 1890s and then like, crap, this is all gonna fall out from underneath us. Yeah, it's also two separate forms of money. So the gold standard is a standard that the world economy uses to keep their spending in check. Yeah. The silver standard is just what they're making their coins out of. Okay, so one was like, this is what America is doing, whereas like, the gold standard is what the rest of the world. America's also adhering to the gold standard. The silver standard is completely different. Yeah, but okay. In the 1920s until 1933 America's on the gold standard. So we need to do it. But they were also on the silver. They're on the gold standard and we're gonna keep it that way. Okay, so we're just gonna like completely negate all of Wizard of Oz, the free silver movement, the whole thing. We're not negating it. We just, it's not important to this current thing that we're talking about right now. Oh, okay. All right, I'm alone for the ride. Yeah, just, just-- Just shut up and roll with it.(laughing) The silver standard doesn't have anything to do with the depression. I would argue that it does. But then again, though, like you done a crap ton of research on this so you would probably know more than I do. Let's just say that, okay, how about this? The gold standard was more of a factor than the silver standard in terms of the great depression. I would argue that the silver standard was trying to hem off of, like they were trying to like sthem off the(beeping) some recession that was going to take place. I read In the nothing late-- about hundreds. We're not talking about the 1800s though we're talking about the 1930s. I know. So-- All I'm saying is that like the silver standard was like, this is how we avoid this great depression now because an 1894 was the greatest recession next to the great depression. Right, but it didn't work in the 1930s, so. No, no, what I'm saying is like, what they did in the, uh, in the decades prior kind of came to a head in the 1930s. Yeah, kinda. me just, let me, let me cook. Like, shut up, ehd, let me talk. Let me cook. Cuz, in, at least my research and maybe I need to do more, I'm not like negating everything you're saying. I read nothing on the silver standard. Oh really? It never came up. Oh, geez, my grandfather remembers the whole silver standard thing. Because the whole idea behind it was like, okay, we're running out of gold, right? We can't base our dollar off of gold. But if we were to introduce silver, then we can incorporate that into the gold standard. Which they did and they're running on both, however, it doesn't help. It doesn't work. We're still running off of the gold standard as a global economy. Well, not today. No, they stopped doing that in 1933. Yes. And, and I think that's where it kind of came to a head is because they switched over to gold and silver. I guess what I'm, what I'm trying to say is if I had maybe done a deep dive further back the 19 19, then I probably would have ran into it, but as of right now, it's small potatoes compared to the other problems that we're running into in the 30s. Okay, if you want, if you want to club the issue with facts, okay. But yeah, no, I think you're right, because like most people in the 1930s could care less about where their value of the dollar sits. No, they could not care less. In fact, they couldn't care less than the 20s when they were spending it all. Yeah, yeah, I'm just saying from a from a literature perspective, people were spending a lot of money under the premise that their dollar was being boosted by a lot of silver and whatnot. And then when that collapse, now we've got even bigger pucho. Right. But why did it collapse? Right. So everybody's buying things on credit. They're buying things they don't need on credit. They're buying things they do need on credit. Everybody's buying things on credit. But 1929 the companies had made an abundance of products that we talked about and they couldn't keep up because people only bought things once we talked about that. Not as many people were buying the products that were being manufactured and factories across the nation in the manufacturing plants companies were hiring more and often kept wages the same instead of raising them during the boom and production. So just keep that little tidbit in mind. Automobiles and radios weren't the only things Americans were putting on credit. The 1920 saw movement of American participation in the stock market that had been previously only available to stock brokers on Wall Street. The American stock market has been around since the late 18th century spent around for a long time. Though it was primarily used by wealthy financiers. By the 1920s, it had become an American financial institution and many began to pay attention to it. The program was introduced in 1924 that would involve millions of Americans by 29. Buying stocks on margin. What does that mean? Buying stocks on margin. That means that Americans had the ability to go to a stock broker. Buy stocks with a 10% down payment of that stock and then pay the broker for the rest of the purchase in monthly installments. Kind of like buying stocks using a credit card owned by a stock broker. To continue playing the stock market, people would often take out mortgages on their homes or businesses to put up larger margins and hopes of doubling what they put in. Then by 1929, an estimated 1.5 million Americans had owned stocks. It's a lot of people. This is how it works. This is basic flow. So let's say you want to buy some stocks in the 20s and you want to buy an margin because you can't afford the shares up front. If you want to buy stocks in the late 20s, you call your stock broker. Who then calls the stock trader to different things, brokers, difference in trader? The stock broker is the guy who calls the trader and the trader is the guy who works for the company at Wall Street. So the stock trader is the guy on the floor and the trader gives the broker a price and the broker goes back to you, the client with that price and the margin. So the broker then includes the margin and the trader price and they give it to the customer who will then say if they want to buy the stock or not. Does that make sense? Is that confusing at all? Because I had to rate it like three times. No, I think it makes sense. and so, it's like, I like to buy a portion of your company. I don't have the money to buy that portion. Therefore, I'm going to borrow money to buy that portion of your company. And then, as a result, I really hope that your company does well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it is. That's pretty much. And it's no different than today. Now, we have some things put in place to like, protect that, but it's true. It's like, "Okay, Kara, your company is worth, say,$100 million. I wanna piece of that action. So I'm gonna give you like a million dollars. In return, I'm gonna get a 1% or 2 or 3 or 4% return out of all of that under the premise that like your company is gonna do okay." Right. That's how the stocks work, basically, and that's cool. Yeah, at this time. It's It's a- a- Yeah, we're not gonna talk about it today. I'm not Yeah, gonna- yeah, today is completely different, because I think like, when everything burned to the ground at this time, as the dumps of fire that you're gonna bring up, the reclamation out of all of that is like, "Okay, you can't buy this sort of stuff." It's gonna be a whole thing. We are going to talk about the whole thing. That's why this thing- This whole thing is like three parts. So, okay, cool. I'm glad that was kind of clear. If anybody still wants clarification, please let me know. And I will try to write it better. So, the Yeah, huge so basically what Cara's saying is that if you have investment portfolios that note- you're unsure of, she will answer those questions. No, no, no, I am not an accountant. I am a not stock broker or trader. I am a historian. Please do not come at me. The huge influx of Americans buying stocks on margin caused inflated stock numbers making it seem as though the economy was incredible. And nothing could bust it. After all the boom, it was experiencing the numbers the public was seeing or being sold to them were based on how many stocks that were being exchanged and their dollar amount not by how the company was actually doing financially. The majority of the population, including economists, newspapers and other influential voices, encouraged Americans to buy more stocks through Wall Street. Newspapers began publishing the stock numbers daily for the public to follow while economists, editors and journalists added additional commentary or explanations to the statistics being presented to them in the issue of the day. No, I have two examples here. I have one from the world newspaper from March 30th, 1929. It says, quote, that at least a part of the great amount of money in the securities market may represent temporary employment of funds eventually finding their way to the business uses. And that the prosperity of the present business cycle will probably not end in 1929 is the belief expressed by the J Henry Schroeder banking corporation in the quarterly review of the London House of Schroeder in other words. The economy is doing so great and the business cycle is doing so awesome that this prosperity is not gonna end in 1929. You're just going to keep going on and on, it's gonna be great. And this next one five, oh, 15 days before this one I just read March 15th from the same newspaper. The atmosphere of doubts and caution which Wall Street is in recent weeks has come in regard almost as habitual on Thursdays was swept away yesterday and a rush of buying perhaps the market's own strengths weighed as heavily with speculated minds as a logic of the situation since the tape is the one institution Wall Street does not argue with. At any rate, the market appeared entirely confident with the opening gone. It was a firm almost buoyant opening many initial transactions involving large blocks at a sizable price advances. The advance was one of the most vigorous of the year, amounting to a net gain of 6.97 points in the Dow Jones average of 30 representative industrial issues in other words. The market is doing wonderful. I know we were all worried, but don't worry. We're doing awesome. It's March 1929. So people are reading articles like this every single day and every single day articles are saying. We're doing great! Economies awesome! This is wonderful! Keep going! Keep on! Keep on! Keep on! Even if you can't afford it. Don't worry. But wait, so there is nobody in the economy at the time that was like, "Hey guys, slow down. Like things are not going to keep going the way you think." There were a few and we aren't going to talk about the most famous one here soon. Okay. Yeah. Because I feel Yeah. like there's gotta been some some daysaers that were like, "Yes"."Ise" "Shill the f out like" A hundred percent. This is going to implode. Yeah. Okay. So just so everybody knows. And I should have added a little bit to this, but I ran out of time. But the Dow Jones is still around today. I'm sure you've heard of it. In the 1920s, the Dow Jones was some of the popular resource to track stark market status. It was established in 1896 by the editor of the Wall Street Journal at the time Charles Dow. The Dow was and still is an average performance of 30 of the country's largest companies. Back in the 1920s, the Dow was used to see how those companies were doing on average in terms of stocks. The average is calculated by using the price of one share per company. So even then, it's not a true average of performance, but how many shares are being bought and sold. It's not exactly the most accurate way to see how healthy the economy is or the most precise way. But it is the easiest way to follow it. So it's like a nice ballpark figure that a lot of people can can read and look at and be like, "Okay, we're doing okay." And then continue to move Yeah. on with today. That's why they call it the Dow Jones industrial average. It's a accumulation of the 30th or the 30th of the top performing stocks. And it's still that way today. Like if you were to go on to the Dow Jones, you would have kind of like a basic idea of how your stocks are doing. Yeah. But you can't like base everything off of that one number. You should probably research a little bit because it's not the most accurate thing in the world. But yeah. And I think that that's where a lot of people ran into problems because they didn't know that they would just follow the Dow and be like,"Okay, everything's great. We're gonna keep buying." Yeah. No, they were never taught how to really read into it. So yeah, because it's designed to be like a ballpark figure. Right. That's it. Like nothing accurate, nothing like, "Hey, base your retirement off of this." It's really designed to be like, "Hey, we think the stock market is behaving this way, roll with it." Yeah. Yeah. So like you have-- The public just starting to dip their toe into stock market trading in 1924. And then by 1929, five years later, you have 1.5 million people trading stocks. So yeah, you're going to have a lot of people Oh. not knowing what they're doing. Oh crap. Okay. That's a lot. That-- Yes, it's crazy. By September 3rd, 1929, the Dow reached 382 points, which set an all-time record for the time. For comparison, say, in September of 1924, it had been worth 100 points. Wow. So crazy influx of activity. Of like just regular people buying stocks on margin with their stockbroker credit card. Right. Can you see some-- Yeah. Okay. Flation to happening people who are buying stocks. On credit via Yep. stocks bought on credit that they didn't actually have. So it was like credit on top of credit and top of credit. Well, they're just buying lots of stocks on credit on top of, you know, they're putting out-- they're putting their houses on collateral and-- Oh god. Yep. Businesses are putting their mortgages on collateral and yeah, like people-- Got it.'Cause they don't believe that this thing's going to tank. They're like, oh, I'll just take out a second mortgage. It's cool. So I can buy these stocks and I'll just double my money next week. Oh, goodness. Like, I'm getting anxiety just thinking about-- Yeah, it's nuts, Like, so-- this isn't how it works. Because ultimately you have to pay back that debt. Right. And they thought they were going to. Be able to. And even if they lost their homesteads in their livelihoods. How Well, are they that... going to pay that back? Well, they didn't think that that was a possibility because this whole time they're being they're being sold. Like, oh, don't worry. Our economy's doing great. Look at all this innovation. Look at all these great things we're doing. Economists are saying this is plateauing. It's the highest plateau ever and it's never going to drop. Right? Sorry. Like my anxiety is just flying to the roof. Like, it's just like, this is not sustainable. It's not. It's crazy. Oh, Here we go. okay. All right, chapter two. Oh, oh, oh, oh, Rulian chapter two. Okay, cool. Run away for a chain and I start this one with a quote from, sir, from a Mr. stud's turkle, he wrote a book called Hard Times in oral history of the Great Depression. It's actually very fascinating book. Wait, studs turkle. Yeah, he has a great name. But his quote is the worst day-to-day operators of businesses or bankers. For fair enough. Funny. All right, a come from a guy with the name of studs. Yeah, he's got it nailed. He's he's got this figured out. I think he's like a he was a writer and an actor and you know what kinds of things like I was interesting. I suggest anybody with time look him up studs turkle, T-E-R-K-E-L. All right, I'm going to name if I have a son, I'm naming him studs. It's very close to my dog's name. Spuds? All right. While many were championing the stock market as a way to get rich there were a few who did see the writing on the wall. Some economists and government figures had warned of an economic bust that would surely come to bite them. The last memorable one was in 1907 in which the stock market fell almost 50%. That's a story for another episode. That's a whole thing that I would like to talk about. And it is interesting. Anyway, for some who studied economics for a living a major bus was in a Vitable quick, like droughts. Silver movement. Like droughts and the great planes. Roger Babson was an accomplished economist and philanthropist who had viewed economics in this way. After the 1907 market crash, Babson began writing a financial journal that had gained popularity over the years. In his journals, he claimed that the economy worked in cycles, following patterns of prosperity and then destitution and then back and forth in waves over all of these years. On September 5th, 1929, Babson held a speech at the annual national business conference in his speech. He stated, "Sooner or later, a crash is coming and it may be terrific." September 5th, 1929, that was about months and two or three weeks before the crash. Yeah. The responses immediately after were very mixed. Many ignored his warnings. Well, few took it to heart and sold their stocks because they were like, I'm not gonna listen to this guy. The few voices of warning such as Babson's did have a difficult time cutting through the noise of the excited spending. Because like, bro, stop being a Debbie downer. This is awesome. Yeah, the market's hot. Like, why crap? Yeah, Jesus. Just. Yeah. the-- Just Ruins shut up. Ruins a party every time. Bull invest. Yeah. Anyway, people would strive for the kind of lifestyle that was advertising them and getting rich quick possibilities where the center of mind of many. Want to get rich? Play the stock market 10% down and you're rolling in it no time. You can play your margins and then some. It's like using your stockbroker credit card to play crabs in Vegas. We're doing great. If you follow the roots to all these credit systems-- That's great. It follows the roots to all of these credit systems from brokers and major companies and different journalism. All of this. You're gonna find yourself in front of very similar buildings with various titles, but providing these exact same service. The banks. Always down to the banks. Think about all of the credit floating around. All of this credit. American people are buying on credit. Stockbrokers are selling on credit and taking up bank loans for stocks they are brokering and across the pond foreign countries were borrowing money after being ravaged by the first world a-- war. Of course, Everything was what could possibly go wrong? Everything is on credit. Where's the-- Everything all is the wealth? fine. It's fine. The actual wealth was in circulation, but it was disproportionate to the rate that was being borrowed. All right, and just hold on to that. Now, we have a guy named Charles Mitchell. Charles Mitchell owned National City Bank and he began focusing on the general public board credit loans and investing in Wall Street throughout the 1920s. Before his efforts, the National City Bank focused on investments from corporate entities, not the average person, not the average Joe, like the regular guy. As of 1928, and going into 1929, the federal reserve saw what National City was doing, because National City was the biggest and largest bank to go to average people, and say buy these things, invest on margin, invest on credit. You're doing great, honey, right? National City Bank is the biggest bank doing this. So, the Federal Reserve, they began issuing warnings to banks like National City that offering loans or investments to people for the stock market would cause a collapse in the future. So, the feds were worried, the Federal Reserve was trying to rein this in a little bit, right? Citibank ignored these warnings and continued to offer the investments to people who could not afford them without the margin. They had gone so far as to offer $25 million to investors in that same year, while the National City Bank wasn't the only bank following these investment practices, they were the first to do so and the biggest. So, National City come on guys. Okay, so now we're talking about National Banks just giving millions. Well, this is National City Bank. This is Okay. a big National Bank, but it's just one entity. Okay. City Bank is like. Yeah. Hey, it's okay. Just here's a bunch money to go buy this home Yeah. for. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is like stop The Federal Reserve is like guys stop. stop Just stop stop stop please. quit it. Like you're killing me. Yeah, the Federal Reserve was worried about a collapse like the one in 1907, right? So, they began raising interest rates on borrowers to try and curb the stock market spending. That's all right. So, they're trying to scare people from taking out loans because who wants that kind of interest, people don't care apparently. Their goal right was to curb the spending, put some sort of guardrail up there for investors or whatever. The raised interest did deflate the market numbers, but it slowed down the rest of the economy and tightened up the available credit, affecting not only the Americans using it, but the foreign powers overseas as well. So, Oh my gosh, being a gold standard center, there is an interest rates forced other countries to keep up. Wow. Yeah, this is this is the hotness in the making. Can you see why I'm like, there's so many things I want to make sure. Yeah, clear, but also you can see it when you're clearly looking at it. Right? But when you're in the weeds like that, when you're getting all of those newspaper ads, bye, bye, bye. We're doing great. We're doing great. We're doing great. We're doing great. It's probably hard to see, you know? Well, and it's one of those things. It's like if you're in the 1930s, cut up in this rank or of like buy sell, buy sell, buy sell, I can't say I really blame a lot of them because yeah, like what I'm then saying, they're making good money. Who's everything was just be like pushing you towards one way without any understanding that when this turned sideways, it goes really sideways. Yeah, like beyond sideways, like it's bad. And also try to think about the culture that we talked about in the prohibition series that roaring 20s culture. Yeah. You had all of that going on at the same time. That was the 20s culture. So you're just in all of that it's like the culture we live in today. It seems like it's really complicated and you're like, I don't know how people would be able to understand it coming from somewhere else. It's the same then as it is now. It's just maybe it looks a little bit different, but it's still that complicated. So when you're in the weeds, you're really in the weeds. So a lot of these people, man, can't blame them. I empathize with them. That's that's hard. Yeah, yeah, because I legitimately knew people that had lost like 17, 30 million dollars. Easy. In like 1920s. Yeah. Like everything, just, well, let me look at Arthur Miller, right? Arthur Miller, who wrote some of the greatest modern plays like Uh, he lost everything. His dad lost everything. Under the premise that it would be like,"Hey, dump all your money into this, and it will pay out over time." Boy, did it not pay out. But now you can kinda see why, right? Like, there's so many different variables when you lay them out front in of you. Yeah, like that. You're like, "Hot crap." Whoa. Um, yeah, it's a, it's a perfect case of we're like you and I, and hopefully anybody who listens to this podcast is like,"You know what? I'm gonna hold off dumping every dollar I have into this one thing," because it may not pay out. It's better to do some research before you make a big decision. Yeah. Um, chapter three. Bust. Oh, God, rolling in chapter three of this dumpster fire. Chapter three, Bust. Alright. What do you know about ticker tape? Take a break from money. Hold on, what do you know about ticker tape? That's okay. You're muted. Add you're muted. There you go. Hi, I'm back. There is. There I am. So like ticker tape is like, basically, like a stream of consciousness. Oh, of, of like whatever the markets are doing. Kind So like Abraham Lincoln would would look at the ticker tape of. to figure out how many people died the previous day. It was basically like the little, uh, it's kind of like the little stream of. I don't know, data or newsfeed or whatever that you would see on like CNN or Fox News or whatever of like what is going on. Yeah. Yeah. So ticker tape is telegraph paper, but it's three quarter inches wide and really, really long like a receipt. Yeah, right. Stock market tickers were just telegraph printers made for the stock market and they were invented in 1867, which then splurred a flurry of innovations for telegraph and start market communication, including one of Thomas Edison's innovations, the universal stock ticker. I just thought that was interesting. Really anyway. So Edison had it. Yeah, has Edison heads had a little bit of a go at that. Okay, okay. So when a person tells their broker, right. So we talked about, okay, you want to buy stocks in the 20s, you tell your broker and then the broker tells the guy wall street. The guy wall street goes back to the broker goes back to you with the price right and that's where we ended. So let's say you say yes. I want to buy that share for this price right. So the person says yes, and they tell the broker, they want to buy sure. The purchase is recorded on a slip of paper. Okay. That's given to the trader from the broker. So the broker will call up the trader at Wallstream Leo. Okay. They want to buy it or whatever that slip of paper is written down by the trader over there at Wall Street and that's a paper is given to a typist. Who types up the order. Or the or the number of shares and the price it is. And then that type piece of paper is added to a stack of other orders, writing to be processed by telegraph. Okay. Now this was done on the market ticker which sent out coded market share sales printed on the three quarter wide decorate that we were talking about. Like your receipt for the stock market being printed on Wall Street and to brokers all over the world for people buying all of these shares, the mini telegram machines were called tickers for the ticking noises that they made when they printed all the ticker tapes all the time. They printed 300 characters a second. That's a little more than like two Twitter tweets back when X was Twitter by the time we get to 1929 the millions of shares. Remember 1.5 million people are buying and selling all of the time. The millions of shares being traded on ticker tape was already strenuous on a system that was done almost exclusively by hand in this way. Lots of steps. Lots of paper. And once we hit October, man. Okay. I am going to start before we talk about the crash that we've been talking about this whole time. I'm going to get into it right now. I do have a quote here from a guy who is this is from Frederick Lewis Allen in his book only yesterday, which he wrote in 1931. He says... On that monumentus day, sorry Frederick, on that momentus day, Thursday, October 24th, stocks opened moderately steady in price, but in enormous volume. The pressure of selling orders was disconcertingly heavy. Prices were going down. Presently, they were going down with some rapidity. Before the first hour of trading was over, it was already apparent that were going down with an altogether unprecedented, amazing violence. Thank you. Thank you, All Frederick. right, the crash of 1921 is usually bookmarked as the start of the Great Depression, but it was not the cause, okay? I'm going to be very clear for my friends who may be taking in U. S. history class. The crash did not cause the depression, but it could be argued that it was catalyst, but it was not the cause. We just talked about lots of different causes that cause the Great Depression and what historians and economists argue about semantically. Now, there are two stages to the start market crash in 1929, black Tuesday and black Thursday. I should have switched those, but fine. Going to talk about it's black Thursday October 24th, 1929. And for those of you following along on our website, when I actually get this updated, there's a article. you can read. It's cool. Anyway, Yeah, because of the increased stock market activity of people buying on margin and stock inflation, the stock market had already been trending upward for almost 10 years. Never went down. It just went up. So that's another reason people were like, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. 10 years. I never went down. Then on Wednesday, October 23rd, it dropped by 4.6 percent in a panic. Investors began selling their stocks the next day, Thursday. A total of 12.9 million shares were traded or sold that Thursday. Remember our ticker tape conversation? 12.9 million. With that many trade, it's happening in a single day. The work that had to be done was astronomical, creating a delay in reporting, updated numbers to traders on Wall Street, let alone the public. The delay caused further panic and discontent, as people watched Wall Street try to deal with the downturn. The confusion was so chaotic that the NYPD was dispatched to New York Stock Exchange to make sure that rights didn't break out. Throughout that Thursday, a number of banks, companies, and wealthy investors bought huge amounts of stocks in order to try to balance out the amount of sales that were being made. At 1.30 pm, Richard Whitney, the vice president of the New Stock Exchange bought 25,000 shares of U. S. steal at $205 per, that's$1920 money. It was a total of$5, 125,000 in 1920. That's all the money. Bro tried to save the market in one go. Gotta give him some credit for that, I guess. His investment gave other wealthy investors confidence to match his purchase or come close to it, at least, with the intention of balancing out the market or bringing it back to a profit if they were lucky. The attempt was successful enough to come in at the end of Thursday, just a few points shy of breaking even. Whitney was even seen as a hero that day, and we will check back on him in like five or six years we'll get there. But yeah, don't forget that guy. That guy is a... we'll chat. We'll talk. Anyway, the next day. Friday, the 25th, the market recovered a small amount. All traders and tickers worked on playing catch up as they updated the market shares from the chaos of Thursday. However, Monday, the stock market would fall again by 12.8%. And then Tuesday happened. Tuesday, much like Black Thursday and Black Monday. Black Tuesday saw an insurmountable amount of sales with little to no purchase. This is to balance out the exchange. The stock market was in complete free fall. About 16 million shares estimated were sold that day. With stock value was plummeting rapidly. Billions of dollars were lost and thousands of investors and traders found themselves with that alike to stand on. Jonathan Norton Leonard wrote in his book Three Years, 1939, about what... he wrote, he wrote in his book, What It Was Like. That day on Black Tuesday, at Wall Street, he says the wires to other cities were jammed frantic orders to sell. So were the cables, radio and telephones to Europe and the rest of the world. Buyers were few sometimes holy absent. This was real panic. When the closing bell rang, the grape hole market was dead and buried. No. Okay, y'all 16 million shares in a day. Whew. Wait, that's even a lot by like today's standards. Yeah, like that's crazy. 16 million shares. And that's just being sold. Oh my gosh. The ticker delay, as you can imagine it would be... It's a soon that there were many trades that were likely lost all together in the chaos of Tuesday's scramble, so it could have been way more than 16 million. We really don't know. Wow. The New York Stock Exchange would close for the rest of the week after activity was suspended Wednesday afternoon. Myths about traders off, offing themselves are committed suicide on black Tuesday, spread like wildfire, thanks to New York headlines immediately after the crash happened. This is actually just that. It was a myth. That didn't really happen as much as the papers would lead you to believe. No, this kind of depression or response to the depression would not be seen until a little bit later in the following years when people were really struggling financially, living with them. So I'm going to argue that rumours spread by Wall Street actually made the panic worse. So thanks newspapers. And then like Domino's, the economic impact of the crash was first felt by Wall Street brokers and then investors and then banks and then companies and then the people very, very vast. When the crash happened, investors had no money to pay the banks directly invested stock money. Since most of their shares were being purchased at March. Okay, after selling whatever they could, they then began calling the clients asking for the balance. They were owed. So brokers couldn't pay traders, traders couldn't pay companies, companies couldn't pay banks, banks couldn't pay people. Yeah, it's basically a win-away chain reaction. In turn, banks were not getting enough money to pay out the loans, fool with draws and deposits. And they were immediately sent to somebody that was owed like a drop in the book. So, oh, cool. We got a deposit and great, give it away to this person. The panic caused an influx of people attempting to withdraw their money from the banks to compound the issue. Banks were also lending out money to foreign countries who could no longer do so. And those countries who were trying to borrow money from the US. They no longer had that financial cushion, so it would send them into the depressions as well. And now you have a global depression. Yeah, so basically, like this will say runaway chain reaction that just messed up all the economies way. and Correct, the correct. It went as far as Japan, Japan was even felt, which I thought was really interesting. I didn't know that. But yeah, I would say like when all this kind of like blew up Yeah, Europe took a beating more than like Europe. anything. Yeah, and I think it's because they were the closest, you know, closely tie. Well, and I think Europe was like heavily invested in America, yeah, because hey, America came out of World War One. They were like in strides. And I think a lot of people were investing in America. Oh, they absolutely were. And they had a and I don't blame them. Yeah, you know, I don't them. I blame would have invested myself like like, yeah. Yeah, what say? else can you So yeah, yeah, it's one of those things where like I honestly don't blame the people. No, like I don't either. Like there's a few people who maybe made a questionable choice like that guy from city bank, but like. Yeah. But but but thing, you know, it was just that one thing. And of all the things, if you're a millionaire, you're going to dump like, okay, I'll throw a couple million dollars and see what happens. Yeah. And then when it all implodes because the entire world is dependent on how these stocks do. Yeah, yeah, you're just asking for a hot mess. So friends, our dumpster is officially on fire. How's the field? All right. Now, I know our show is about dumpster fires. And we talk a lot about how the dumpster fire gets lit. But I also want to talk a lot about how the dumpster fires put out. Because I think that is the half of a failure that should be the part that celebrate. I think how the fires put out is how we as a species of people are like, OK, this went down. It's a hot mess. And this is how we put it out, and this is how we move forward. Now, I think before we start talking about how to put it out, with our two leaders who are going to attempt to do so in two different ways, uhm, we should probably talk about, eh, we're going to first talk about how, uhm, global governments responded, but B, we should also talk about just regular people, like you and me. I'm going to talk about them a little bit too. All right, chapter four. Apples. I wish the camera sometimes would work. Uhm, all right, global Just, responses. just, just apples. Apples, that's literally the, uh, the chapter, that's it, it. that's We're, we're just going to talk about apples. Yep, we're going to talk about some apples. How do you like them apples? Global responses immediately following the crash varied, but due to being on the gold standard. Many countries, including the US, had to increase tax percentages, implement, or raise tariffs on foreign trading and cut spending wherever possible. At the expense of the average working person, the economy scrambled to keep up with the gold standard and the collapse of banking systems across the world. Tariffs caused distrust between countries causing isolationism or resentments while at the same time increasing prices for goods bought by the consumer. Cutting, spending, or increasing taxes would hurt the consumer more directly, but either way, the consumer is the one who's getting screwed. In a nutshell, because literally everybody was buying everything on credit, the global economy was still recovering from a world war. Countries were being limited by the gold standard and tariffs were being implemented. Production was overproducing, and banks were slinging credit sales. We got ourselves depression, and, uh, we have some tension in the Ford Affairs sector, and that's fine. We'll figure that out too, but the tension is really going to get real in Europe. Um, and, and we will talk about the really real tension in Europe, especially out of Germany. We're going to talk about the war in Germany, and probably Episode three, not four, depending on how far I want to take this, but just know it's we nice. got There's stuff going down over there. All right. We're in the interwar period. Please remember, we are between two world wars here. And the big engine of a little bit of history. So amongst the general population, the race to obtain money before it was lost was on people quickly lost their homes, as they had put it on collateral for loans that they had taken out previously during the boom of the twenties companies that had over produced could no longer keep the employees that they had hired for that mass production, but they did try their best to keep who they could afford in the depressions early years. But they had to do so with lower wages, okay? But in 1929 and 1932, the average unemployment rate rose from 3.2% in 1929 to 23.6% in 1932. Wow. That's a lot. That's 20%. That's a lot of people. Yeah. That that's that's a lot of people unemployed. That's a lot of unemployed people. Keep in mind also that 1933 is considered the height of the depression and unemployment would be just a little bit higher than that in 1933. So today we're stopping at 32. Next time we're going to talk about 33. I have a reason for that. But we'll get there. That's rough. It's rough. But what happened to you, buddy? Right. And I do also want to know 23% is a really high number for unemployment, but also you do have 70. seven. My math is probably bad. 87% of the population who are still working. Many of the people who are still working though are terrified of losing their job. They're getting Yeah, paid very very low wages or they're just incredibly lucky or their self-employed farmers who are about to go through a drought. Keep in mind. What for the dust bowl? What episode was that? Yeah, well, yeah, that's another episode. I know we have it. We did it. I did I know you did. Remember what number is the friends go find it. It's good. Oh my goodness. That that is brutal. Like because I was cut up in the 2019 2008 poll. And I was a part of the was it like 8% that loss of jobs. And then here I am like 2008, right? Yeah, 2018-2009. And I was complaining that like, 'woe is me, I'm losing my job.' But like,'dude to lose' like 30%, yeah. That's a lot of people. That's millions. Yeah, I wish I show a visual, but we are an audio format. But we'll include it in the show notes. Yeah, look it up somewhere, it's a lot of people. Yeah. People who lost their homes due to foreclosure, collateral, or other reasons were forced to resort to creating shanty towns. The shanty towns sprung up all over the country, primarily in big cities, and we become a symbol of the depression for years after the fact. I am purposely leaving out a name for them. I'll tell you a little later. Instead of buying, yeah. Okay. I just want, like, I can edit that up, but like, I'm just thinking, I kind of know a guy at that time that was-- Let's just say one and episode two are going to overlap. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, shaded towns. Okay. Instead of buying or purchasing items that were damaged, as they would have before, people would just repair them or mend them. That includes clothes, shoes, or items found around the house. So you're getting-- You're starting to see that if anybody's talked to anybody who knew anybody during the Great Depression, they would do everything they could not to spend money, even until they were super-circle-old, and I'm sure you can tell me if this is correct. And it's because of this reason is they just grew up that way, or they lived during the Depression where they didn't have anything, so they did what they could around the house to make sure that they still had what they needed, but they didn't-- They didn't have to spend so much money it. So I remember my grandfather telling me when he was a kid during the Great Depression, because he grew up in Elgin, Illinois, and everybody was kind of like making their way through, Elgin. And one of the things that my grandfather remembers as a kid, and I kind of hold on to this to this day, is they would make meals. And they would purposely put these meals on plates on the back porch, because people that were trained to move out west needed a place to eat. They needed a place to sleep. They needed whatever. And yeah, my grandfather remembers as a kid, like preparing meals for these folks that were just trying to find a better way of life. And here's a funny thing. Every day, those dishes that they would put out every night, they would be cleaned, scrubbed like scrubbed, cleaned and stacked neatly with the, you know, forks, spoons, and knives all on the top row plates every day. Yeah, this is-- It was an interesting phenomenon. You would have just people helping other just because they needed help. Yeah. Yeah. And anyway, they could, whether it was like work or labor for somebody or just doing something kind for somebody else or here's a meal. Yeah. Here's-- And it was a vastly different country. Yeah. This was people just helping people out because my great grandfather, he had a gas station. So he stayed gainfully employed all through the depression. Same thing with my grandmother. That's good. And what did they do? Hey, we have excess money. We're going to dedicate that to people that are struggling, people that are trying to make it through. And that's not something that we see today. Yeah. It's pretty interesting the way it affected people. One interesting quote that I thought was fascinating was from an African-American man. Okay. The Great Depression made it to where everybody was on a level playing field. So the white folks and the black folks were on a level playing field. Oh, wow. I thought that was a really interesting quote. And I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it in front of me. But from that perspective and point view, it kind of makes you think a little bit for the African-American people who were affected by it. Or the I Native-- would want to read the poetry from that time period. Because like, like, you know me. I look at history from the perspective of the literature from the time period, but I don't know much about it. I've never come across any sort of literature from that time period to really shed light on like, I mean, yeah, I've read like Leslie, Marmin, silko, and and all that kind of stuff. But that was more like, I don't That was more like 50/60s. Yeah, for me, I was reading a lot of just interviews. Yeah. Of people who were living through it. And just like, little summer user blurbs of books that they had written about it. I did read a majority of a book from a man who lived through it. A lot of a lot of the perspectives that you get are just direct non-fiction. Yeah. Read this thing that I went through. This primary Yes, source. here it is. But what I wish I could have had time for or would have done more of is the African American perspective. And I think I'm going to do that with this next episode because this episode I'm mainly focusing on the general what happened. Yeah, like the. type of deal overviews. Just so everybody's kind of on the same page. But Yeah, I think I'm going to dive into that African American. And if I can native American perspective and can I give you guys some of that too? I would welcome that because that is like the one area where I am horrifically deficient in, is in the Native American sight of things in terms of the great depression. Yeah, and there's a lot going on in that sphere. but I don't have enough information to just like really talk about it. And I'd like Yeah, to do more reading on it. So maybe I'll add that in there, but this is going to be a four-parter, I guess. are. So Here we what you're saying is that I've got the next three or four weeks. Yeah, you got some time. Yeah. All right, soup kitchens and food banks saw a massive influx of people and could hardly keep up creating long lines of people for a facing hunger. Those who were more fortunate had donated to these institutions. For example, Al Capone opened one of the first soup kitchens in Chicago. Fun that I love that. That's a fun fact for you. Like he's an ultimate douchebag. Oh, yeah, but he really did try to help out. He did. He did. And remember, we also have prohibition going on at the same time. Yeah. Last episode of prohibition. Here we are. Same time. Yep. And that's all attacks right off. Facts. Soup kitchens were at the only places facing long lines and wait times, seeing men waiting outside doors of factories or ports to be picked for work became a common daily occurrence. Anybody found the foreman who chose men would have favorites or their own discriminations by erasism when picking people for work that they causing incredible tension and frustration. And this is going to come to a head in a few years. And do I have some rabbit holes that I went after that? Others did what they could to make ends meet from selling belongings to selling things they had made. And then they went to a new place that they would have sold services like shoe signing, cleaning, or more taboo services like sex work. Some people found a creative solution that proved to be fruitful for a short period. I was so proud of my word play. You go, Cara. Well, the great planes were beginning to show signs of drought. Apple Growers in New York, Michigan, Virginia and Washington, found themselves growing too many apples and found themselves with a surplus in the I think the Sura plus in the early 1930s. The chairman of the International Apple Association. That is a thing. The International Apple Association, Joseph Sicker, what a name. Had an idea. He figured why not sell these apples at an extremely discounted rate and have other seldom in the streets. Sicker worked with the produce industry to purchase $10, 000 worth of surplus apples and sold them to under employed people or unemployed people. And what they would do is they would sell as much as they possibly could and then pay $1. 75 per box at the end of the day, keeping the balance of the profits for themselves. And just I did the conversion for $1. 75 a box. It's today's money. It's like$33 and 24 cents. So if you're out there selling apples all day, you're going to take in some profit, right? Yeah. This system met three major needs that Sikker had observed in his community. I think he was in New York. It got rid of the surplus apples. That's a win. It gave the unemployed some sort of income and it gave unemployed men in particular a sense of purpose after losing their jobs because what I didn't talk about and I should have is that all of these men. They felt like they didn't have any purpose anymore. They felt like they were useless. They, The man has to put the bread on the table type of culture that we are living in and all of a sudden they can't do that. And for them, it's like an existential thing. Depression rates are way up among the men and now they can't take care of their families and for them, it's really embarrassing and it's really sad and they feel like they have no purpose in life anymore in that type of deal. That was a widespread thing. Okay, so women need to understand as well as men need to understand that like women honestly don't give a crap what their husbands do. It's like they, they honestly don't care if they're lane bricks or if they're a business, you know, CFO or whatever. However though on the men's terms men feel like that like unless they are contributing to the household, they're not doing anything at all. And men feel like what what you some I, if I am just lane bricks or whatever. And it's it's a really, really, really tricky thing because men need to understand that women don't care about what their husbands do for a living, but men put a huge priority in terms of what it is that they do for a living and contributing to their greater good. So like I like going back into the Great Depression, I can see where these men were coming from and it sucks because this is like what good am I, what am I doing? Yeah, and it's so ingrained into the human psyche or the zeitgeist, but yet I really wish and I'm going to put myself in this category. I really wish I could embrace the fact that my wife literally does not care what I do for a living. As long as you get home safe everyday, that's all she cares about yeah, but yeah, I'm not an a hole in problem. the You're not like coming home from a saloon, yeah, complete jerk face, but like I can also see where these guys were coming from. I can see it too, maybe not, it's just like the stronger senses you can because female, but I can, I can see the perspective for sure. Yeah, but, but ultimately like you can you, you can look at your husband and whether he has a corporate executive position, or he was lame bricks. You, you don't care. No, we talk about that a lot actually. Yeah. Like I don't put as much stock into what I do. There are things that I love to do like I love teaching. But if I have to do something else to pay the bills, I don't care, but I would rather teach if I'm making less money. Where Yeah. as he's like, well, yeah, but wouldn't you want to retire at a decent age and make all of this money so you can live without struggling, which fair, but but also like, yeah, so it's that conversation. And I'm sure every husband and wife or wife and wife or husband has been whatever, I'm sure every couple has that conversation. Yeah. I, I've had this conversation many times at the end of the day though, my wife could care less. Yep. What I do. Yep. She could care less how my paycheck is made, unless it's like legally, like I'm selling math or whatever, Right. but like. It within reason. Yeah, within reason, but at the end of the day, like, women have this profound ability to look past any sort of deficiency in terms of their spouses contribution. Like superheroes. Yeah, like yeah, y'all can just be like, I don't care. I really don't care if you're a brick layer or you're sucking out poop from, uh, from a trailer or whatever. Just, hey, dirty money comes home clean. That can be taken so many ways. I know, I know. Okay. But, but, but it kind of stands, though, is this like men, and I'm in this category, men need to understand that if you have somebody who loves you and cares about you, they don't care at all about what position you have at work. Yeah, I can agree with that. But then men are like, well, I need to be an executive. I need to be this. I need to be that. I need to be whatever. Yeah, it's super tricky. It really is. But the apples. But those, but those apples. These apples, you know what these apples, they gave unemployed men a sense of purpose after they lost their jobs. There we go. Apples, those apples. We apples. like God bless those apples. God bless those apples. Apple selling became immensely popular in New York City. If you were to visit that city in 1930, you would see apple sellers on every street corner like Apple Starbucks and estimated 6000 people per day were selling apples no matter what the weather looked like. Some apple vendors were given clothes and donations from folks walking the streets. They knew the apples sellers were the ones who were down on their legs. So a lot of people who were better off helped them out in more ways and just buying apples off of them. So crazy last song though. By late 1930 or early 1931. So many apples were being sold that the apple suppliers needed to raise the box price up to 250 to try to generate enough profit for the growing amount of vendors. Eventually, the practice began to fade despite the suppliers efforts to keep it going surplus began to dry up and people began to notice that apple sellers would clog up traffic in the streets and not to mention the endless amounts of apple cores that littered the ground. Despite not lasting very long, it did leave quite the impression on the period its pop culture and apples remained as simple of the great depression. For a very long time, even today, by some standards, if you talk to somebody, sometimes it'll be like apples and you're like,"Why apples? Well, there you go, that's why." Apples. Chapter 5. So a lot of apples. So a lot of apples. Chapter 5. Box Curs. This rabbit hole that I went down guys. This rabbit hole is not even in my handwritten version because I found this rabbit hole very late in the research process and I was like, "This is cool." So in the months after the crash, an increasing amount of unemployed young men and even some women desperate for work turned to a very creative solution to travel to different towns and cities hoping for more luck elsewhere. 250,000 young people. Age somewhere around 15 to 23 to the rails looking for work, adventure or an escape from the lives at home. They would become known as Bosco children, joining a growing culture of unemployed men called hobos. Okay, guys, what do you think of when you think of the term hobo? Be honest. I mean, I kind of think of the homeless vagabond. I just travel via train across the nation. Okay, there. A lot of people think of the stereotypical homeless guy. Sometimes people think if don't want to do anything, right? It usually uses the derogatory term. But these people were very proud people. I found this fascinating. These people were very proud. And I actually kind of after doing my research on them, I kind of respect them a lot more. And we don't know where the term hobo really comes from. There's a lot of different theories, but there's we haven't pinned one down, which I thought was interesting. Hobos have been around. In fact, Doc Brown, right back to the future. He was a hobo. Oh, yeah, I had a person he was. He's just a Yep. time traveling hobo. Yep. Yeah, he was just he he was a brilliant man who came up with an incredible technology. And he literally just traveled through time. Somebody. And you'll notice that like on the third movie, he ends up traveling through time via a train. Yeah, the first one's the best one. Third one's me. Yeah, I kind of like the third one because it had busy topping it. But, but, but like, ultimately at the end of the day, he was traveling through time via a train. Ha-ha. Kind of like a hobo. Kind of like a hobo. I could, I could get behind that. Yeah. Could get behind that. So like, yeah, like here's Doc Brown, this quantum physicist, just being like, 'Hey, Marty, we gotta go in the future to deal with your stupid self.' And then we gotta go 50 years in the past to deal with my stupid self. Mm-hmm. But- but that that's completely, besides the point, I, I, I, all I'm saying is that like the idea of the hobo being this white trash homeless vagabond? No, no, these, these were people legitimately trying to get from one end of America to the other end of America with some degree of dignity. Yeah, I found these people fascinating. Yeah. So hobos have been around since the end of the Civil War. They were usually in military war events who didn't want to return home or they had no home to return to and said they would work on the railroads while writing their train tracks, many of them built. Hobo culture ended in the years that followed them- oh, sorry, ebbed in the years that followed, but it did show new revival during the Depression. Between 1865 and 1917, hobo culture was a fairly popular way of life in American culture. The workforce they provided filled positions that were seasonal and they were popular hires because they were able to move from town to town or take winters off all local people, usually needed year-round work. Many hobos would work jobs on farms, fish canneries or seas as little work that they would travel for during the winter. It was common to see them living in shanty towns called jungles. They called their little towns jungles where they built communities and took care of one another during the cold months and then or if like work was nearly non-existent because farming is really hard in the winter? If you've ever tried it, good on you because I'm not going to try that. In these communities, hobos had their own form of slaying a union and even a newspaper, hobos were very proud people. They were very protected of protective of their title, which I thought was cool. Unlike tramps, tramps, screw the tramps, who were considered beggars who didn't work or bums who didn't work or beg, they just bummed it out. Hobos traveled to work and worked to travel, so we're not talking about lat lessons. Correct. We are talking about dudes who wanted to work and they were very proud of their work. Work was their thing. They would often take payments in various farms, whether it was money, goods or just simply helping another person. The hobo-definition of work was doing something to better themselves or somebody else. Money was just a bonus. James Lee Howe, the millionaire hobo, was the heir to a million dollar fortune in St. Louis. Instead of living the life of a rich man, he chose to live the life of a hobo and he lived with a hobo community, learned about their culture, their ideologies and the people who lived their lives there for a few years. A number of years. And then after he decided to leave the hobo culture, he did everything he could to better the community and that he had learned so much about. He founded the International Well Fair Brotherhood Association, which was a union for migrant workers, i. e. hobos. They started a newspaper for hobos around the country and they would publish information about where the best stop is for the best types of food or there's jobs here in the city and there's jobs here in that city. Skip the city, they suck this city's racist, but this city's friendly to minorities and so on and so forth. Just to help them out and it was printed and published in various jungles. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot going on there. So much! The union had even organized hobos colleges that were operated during the winter. The largest one being in Chicago and classes were things like a law and there was another one. It was law and accounting and there was something else but yeah, like full-on. Hobo culture was romanticized primarily thanks to a famous hobo named Leon A. Livingston, or alias number one. who authored his supposed experiences as a hobo in the United States, the late 1800s, early 1900s. Today his 12 books are considered part-trustful, part-exaggerated, to make a very good story. However, his writings are still used to get a general idea, what life was like, but just remember, take it with a grain of salt, if you choose to read them, they are entertaining. During the 1920s, economic boom, hobo culture was not as popular as it had been once before, especially before the First World War. However, when the Great Depression hit the number of people who decided to take up the lifestyle, strolled again. And that's understandable. I get it. Hobos were often solitary people, but they did show that they cared about their community. When traveling, they supposedly left signs written with chalk or charcoal to communicate with other hobos about different locations along the railroad. The signs were coated with that were almost like hieroglyphs using a coated language that some scholars are working on to siphoning, and then some scholars are saying that it may not be as complex or important as what you're saying. They still argue about it. That's what historians do. We love them. For example, one siphere that we think is pretty on point is a top hat, so they would just draw like a rectangle with a line under it, and that was that a rich man lives there. Others are like sque 欸ly's and stuff that we don't really either know or have an idea of things like a dog lives here, or a nice lady lives here. She will give you food, stuff like that. Hobo life wasn't all that easy. Sounds cool, right? Sounds like it. It's an adventure, especially for younger people who ran away via Trinkart. Young men and women had a lot of various reasons for riding the rails. Some looked for work to help support their families, while others were looking to escape a difficult life at home, whether it was abuse or poverty. So I'm just wanted to do it because it was exciting. The reality that they had found wasn't that exciting, but it was also very dangerous. Train hopping wasn't 一點 illegal. Like this was not something that was allowed. And in the 1930s many local law enforcement officers were quick to arrest anybody, they considered a hobo. Not only that, but riding jumping on or off train cars and sleeping on a giant moving vehicle without being detected was just plain dangerous. There are reports of hobos being found frozen after they were locked into refrigerated box cars. Hobos were often run over, limbs were lost in some sort of accidents, wall or on or around trains. I read one story where a kid didn't duck fast enough when going into a tunnel. Oh. He survived, but he had a one when I read it really gnarly like a scar we could see a skull and stuff. Oh, jeez. Yeah. I read so many primary interviews on this. I was so fascinating. Anyway. While most hobos were willing to help others teach people and show kindness, there were also absolutely a number of bad actors who would be out looking for a fight. Female hobos would often need to think about all of these dangers along with assault wind traveling. Oh. Yeah, that happened. I, I, I, I, I, I, I hate it. Like when I study like women in the 1800s, England, where like they just have to take up sex work. Yeah. They had a roof over there. And it frustrates me because you know, like they're not enjoying it. Yeah. For them it is I'm just here to collect a paycheck. But like the guys are capitalizing on that and I don't know that that this bothers me to know in because I don't know. Like I feel like humanity. There's not a lot that we can really claim as like an enjoyment, but taking advantage of women who are just trying to make ends meat. And I don't know. It, to me, it's just, it's just frustrating. Yeah, you hear that like sex work has to be a viable profession for women. When it shouldn't be. Sex work and its history is fascinating. Yeah. And there's so many perspectives on it. And I'm not going to get into it right now. Right. Because that's a can of worms. And you can tell I'm really trying to control myself because it's interesting and it's fascinating and it's sad and it's, and I just want to talk to all of these women who wanted to do that for a living or who didn't, who didn't want to do that for a living or both. Because there were women who wanted to do that for a living. Anyway, I'm And gonna, you know, I'm opening the can, I'm gonna close the I'm closing the can. Well, can, all I'm gonna say is that, hey, if that's your thing, cool, go for it. Like that, that, that's the avenue you wanna take. But there's just been so many women in history, where they've had to forego a career. They've had to forego their, like, their, their, their career path. Yeah. And they had to go to sex work. Yeah. Because that's the only way that they could make ends meet. At the expense of, I don't know, some guy, two minutes later. Like, cool, I'm happy. And then he pays, X amount of money walks away. But yet, these women are like, I kinda wanna write poetry. I kinda wanted to engineer this solution to a problem. I kinda wanted to, maybe, you know, contribute to the economic profitability of my nation. Yeah. So, yeah, it just bothers me. I don't know. I know, I know, I know, and I'm going completely off the rails here, but it's just like-- Yeah, literally off the rails? Yes. It's just that women should not have to put themselves up for sale to make ends meet when they have so many skills and so many talents and so much to contribute to society. But, anyways, I digress Hobos, Homeless People, it's just-- What's striding to me? Hobos. Mainly because I have two daughters of my own, and I would hope that they would never have to-- Subjugate themselves to this line of work. Well, I mean, female hobos didn't really do that. had-- They just Yeah. Watch out for it. Yes, but it was also one thing. I mean, it was a thing, 100%, but Hobos didn't really do that. They just had to look out for bad people. Now, let me ask you this question. So, like, Hobos in general, right, so I see the picture here where they're like sitting on top of a railroad car and whatnot. Was there like a coat of conduct? Did they like adhere to like, okay, we're going to treat our fellow human being a certain way? From what I read, it was a lot like the old experienced hobo guys showing the young guys how to do it. And they showed them kindness, and taught them about their way of life. So, in return, they would, you know, pay it back. I'd say for the most part, the hobos were actually kind, considerate people, and then you had some people who were not kind, considerate to them. Okay. For the majority. But they would be-- they would be handled. Maybe. I don't know. Because I remember my grandfather telling me, like, their sheriffs, and Elgin Illinois, like, if you were a homeless guy with a family, and you're passing through, and you needed help or whatever, they would take care of you. But, as soon as you started to, like, do anything nefarious, then that sheriff and the rest of the community would be the living crap out of you, and just throw you onto the roadside and not give a crap. Yeah, I could see that happening, for sure. So, I don't know if that was like a strictly Elgin Illinois thing. But, I don't know. I just feel like America was a different country. 30, 40 years ago, than what it is today. This is 80 years ago. 80 years ago, if you want to color the issue with facts. Yeah. So, anyway, hobos would fight... Anyways! For many years. Even after the peak they saw during the Great Depression. Smaller Hobo groups are still around today, though they don't quite travel by train car anymore, or leave chalk messages like they did back then. Hobo culture and box-car children would leave a mark on the minds of people, who think about the Great Depression, even now. The image of a homeless person around a can fire comes from Hobos. Man, I thought Okay. that was interesting. Yeah. Alright, now let's tie this bad boy up. For the next ten years, the American people would face unemployment in major cities and drought and plains. In American history, the 1930s are often remembered by images of soup kitchen lines, destitution, and the dust bowl. And anyway, that's true. People were living in shanty towns. They did beg for work and they did have to make difficult financial decisions due to poverty. But there's also a lot under the surface that we tend to forget about. What were the 1930s actually like, but what was going on? Yes, the depression was going on. Yes, people were waiting for soup kitchen lines, but did you know that there was a labor union strike in 1934 where people were beat to death? By law Oh, enforcement. no, did you know that there was a woman who stood up for the men inside doing a sit in? Okay. So they could keep their job? She wasn't throwing like cue balls through mirrors, If right? Or... I remember correctly, it's been a couple of weeks, I think she was walking around with a baseball bat. Okay, so we have a woman walking around with a fricking hatchet, like wrecking businesses. Now we have a woman with a baseball bat. She's sick, dude. And then what about the woman that was like throwing pooh balls through? Oh, that's the same hatchet lady as keranation. Yeah, well, keranation is like... She's great. But, yes, she's the hottest thing that is walked onto America. Read her autobiography, please. Oh my gosh. Keranation is amazing. She's a lot. But then there was also a guy Yes, these are people of the 20's. Now we're going to talk about people in the 30's. But let's talk about the dirty 30's, shall we? How did these people empower response to the crash or find the road to recovery? How did those decisions impact everyday people? The crash of 29 may have been a dumpster fire. But what was done to put the dumpster fire out in at least in the early 30's? Step one. Light more dumpster fires. Let's go. That's where we will end it today. Next time we will talk about Herbert Hoover and his decisions while he was president before. Oh, yeah, like the Hoover Vills and... Yeah, so we're going to overlap with this episode a little bit. We're going to talk about how he responded to the crash and what was done there and then we'll talk about the election of 1932, November 1932. And then we'll move on to the next president to see what he does differently. Yeah, because they're we're getting into like Roosevelt and... The next episode is going to be Hoover and then the episode after that is going to be Roosevelt. I think that's how I'm going to do it. Okay. Yeah, stay tuned. Thanks everybody for sticking around for two hours. Talk about stock trading and apples and... Yeah, in the meantime be sure to reach out to your friends and relatives. Just put the podcast like let them know what we're all about. The day some supplier is a podcast that looks at like where things went into a hilly, hilly, tailspin I guess. Yeah, word it's a good for it. Yeah, and here we are like we've managed to like claim out of these issues and like we're better off for it and you're going to be better off for it because chances are you haven't like killed tens of thousands of emus. You haven't sunk half the British fleet in a battle like you certainly haven't done what Custer has done. So like yeah, spread the word, tell your friends and family, show them how to find our show. Also, if you could show us some love, leave a review. Those are actually very helpful comments. Yeah, and just show people how to find us on YouTube and Amazon and wherever. So yeah, thanks Kara. I know we've got like 27 more episodes coming up. Three tops, three tops, probably two. I'm working on one of the greatest. bank ice of human history. Sweet. Yeah, yeah, it's a complete reversal from what we've got going on here here with the great depression. I'm working on where like four hackers tried to steal a billion dollars. It sounds very recent. What government? Would that be the most contemporary one we've done? Yeah. Okay. Because that was 2016. Okay. So less than 10 years ago. Yeah, yep. Yep, yep. That's good. The most recent one that that that's what I'm working on. And yeah, yeah. Tell friends and family. I know a lot of people are traveling right now, so spread the word because they're all going to be traveling and yeah, I really don't have much else to add. Excellent. Alright, everybody keep it a hot mess. Check out the website and all that good stuff. Otherwise, we'll see you next time. Bye. Alrighty. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you in the next one.